and later had charge of several country state schools. His teaching experience included the German Mission National Day School, Nundah, which changed its name to Nundah State School in 1895 (1865-1868), Springsure (1870-1876), Enoggera National School (1877-1885) and Cambooya (1893-1894). Between 1867 and in 1878 Nicholson published three short books of miscellaneous prose and verse, facetious and satirical in character. The first two of these were published under the pseudonyms of 'Tadberry Gilcobs' and 'Salathiel Doles'. So far back as 1856, however, he had begun to brood over the idea of writing an allegorical history of a man's life on the earth, and in 1873 whilst at Springsure, he wrote the early chapters of The Adventures of Halek, the work for which Nicholson is most well known. Inspired in part by John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, ('Halek' being the Herbrew word for 'pilgrim'), The Adventures of Halek was published in London in 1882, and was considered by some to be a masterpiece, "worthy to rank with the works of Dean, Swift and John Bunyan as classics". Others, like the reviewer in The Bulletin, were not so kind, writing that Halek had "one crowning fault - it is insufferably tedious", a sentiment shared by A.G. Stephens who pronounced the book "carefully written, but dull". Largely autobiographical, the work is essentially an allegory which communicates the idea of man's development from sinful worldliness to ideal goodness. A second self-published edition of Halek was produced in 1896 in Brisbane, incorporating a review of Halek by Theodore Wood, explanatory notes, a key to the Hebrew words, together with congratulatory letters from admirers like W E Gladstone, Sir Samuel Griffith, the Rev William Osborne Lilley, Denis O'Donovan (the Queensland Parliamentary Librarian), and others. A third edition appeared in 1904. In the same year Almoni, a companion volume to Halek, was also published in Brisbane, but received a less positive reception. Both books were translated into several European languages. Nicholson resigned from the Education Department in April 1885 but rejoined some years later and was head teacher of the state school at Cambooya from September 1893 to the end of 1894 when he finally gave up teaching. He was then appointed Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths at Nundah near Brisbane. Nicholson was one of the founding members of the Johnsonian Club (1878-1991), an exclusive Brisbane club, modelled on the London Literary Club of Sir Joshua Reynolds